If you want to see Jack Nicholson give a simple, compelling performance with absolutely no hambone antics, look no further than this underrated drama.

Nicholson plays a U.S. border patrolman so exhausted and demoralized that he jumps at the chance to do a good deed — finding and returning the baby of a young Mexican woman (Elpidia Carrillo). He butts heads with ditsy wife Valerie Perrine and corrupt coworker Harvey Keitel, and gets furious with both of them — yet, since Nicholson doesn’t overact, his anger is that much more effective.

The movie is “small,” with no extravagant themes and almost no action, but it commands our attention.